


an open door

by Trotter



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, japan unit hell yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-15 07:38:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12316704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trotter/pseuds/Trotter
Summary: “Bite your tongue,” Yuta told Jaehyun. “Oppa’s got it all figured out.”(or: NCT Tokyo is set to debut with Yuta as their leader. It's a bumpy ride.)





	an open door

Yuta opened the door to Taeyong’s big grin and fought the urge to slam it shut.

“Yukkuri~~,” he sang. “Dance teacher called us.”

“Both of you?”  said Yuta, and he jerked his chin at where their trainer was sitting with Ten taking up all the space at his table. Behind Taeyong, Jaehyun nodded, apologetic, and made a show out of showing Yuta his phone screen, where a game of Piano Tiles had been paused at an admittedly high score. “Taeyong-hyung insisted,” he confided. “I think he’s enjoying this.”

“No shit,” Yuta said.

“And I wanted to come,” Jaehyun added, and smiled in that Jaehyun way, sweet and smug, and either way Yuta was really fucking glad they added Jaehyun to this subunit. 

“Ten!” Taeyong was saying. “You didn’t tell me you were helping with choreo.”

“I’m not,” Ten said, and used one of Yuta’s clean practice shirts to wipe his sweaty forehead. “If I ever come up with a choreo like this, you guys can shoot me. No offense, teacher,” he sparkled at the older man, who still sported the same unimpressed look he’d had when Ten first showed up.

“I called him,” Yuta admitted, not sure why it sounded like a confession, and definitely not looking at Taeyong. “I wanted a second opinion.”

“Huh,” said Taeyong: just that. Yuta breathed out in relief. “And the verdict?”

 “ _So hard_ ,” Ten groaned in English. “Two times the moves in Seventh Sense. I sweated a river, seriously.”

“I don’t see what the problem is,” their instructor said. “Ten can do it, Yuta can do it. The others can practice till they get it.”

“Yuta-hyung learned Firetruck in four hours, he doesn’t count. Is this better or worse?” Jaehyun asked, from his huddle on Yuta’s bed. He looked confident _enough,_ Yuta supposed, because that’s how Jaehyun was; he kept his worries to himself, gathering himself inward like a clam with a grain of sand. Only Taeyong could stop him before he forgot about everything else.

“Worse, I think, look at his face,” Taeyong laughed delightedly and tripped into the bed with him, linking their arms. “Don’t worry, you’ll get it in no time. I’ll help you.”

 “You’re supposed to be resting, Taeyongie,” Yuta said. “Bad enough that you have to learn it yourself.”

Bad enough, he means, that Taeyong was shuffled unceremoniously into yet another subunit when he was so visibly close to burnout. According to the management it couldn’t be helped; Taeyong had done his job as the face of NCT a little too well, going on to be the voice, the laugh, the incredible stage presence and in general just the foundation of all their success. If NCT was debuting in Japan, then so was Taeyong’s dance, sharp like hot knives through butter; so was Taeyong’s gaze that made him look half-boy, half-god; so was Taeyong, burning bright, eyes fixed and clear on dizzying heights the rest of them could only dream of.

Taeyong was smiling up at him, winsome. “I promise to be careful.”

“See? Told you,” Ten said absently, playing with his phone. “Yuta-hyung worries about nothing. He’s worse than Doyoungie, seriously.”

Yuta made outraged faces at him. “You take that back.”

Their dance instructor stood up. “Tomorrow at seven then. Make sure Hansol and Taeil get the message.”

Ten touched the back of Yuta’s neck as he followed. “Leader-hyung is tense,” he said, sparkling with good humor. “Don’t worry, it won’t be me causing trouble.”

Yuta sparkled back. “Still got my eye on you, pretty boy.”

“Most people do,” Ten said, and stepped out.

Yuta turned back to watch Jaehyun and Taeyong talk with slightly narrowed eyes. He wasn’t sure how they were adapting as it was, to the lyrics or to the new management, without this mess of a new choreo coming in. Taeyong assured him daily that he was having the time of his life but that was no help at all; Taeyong could be on fire and he’d still insist he was fine. His head was tilted up towards Jaehyun’s as he whispered, casual, intimate. Taeyong was good at this, everyone knew that. He said something and even the maknaes listened, moving as one to keep him happy. There was something open and warm about him that made you want to confide in him, knowing he would love nothing more than to help.

That was kind of the problem, actually. Lee Taeyong never knew when enough was enough.

“Yuta,” said a shadow.

“EH,” Yuta said, relief chasing his initial panic. “Hansol, when did you get here?”

“I met Ten in the hallway,” said Hansol, roundabout as always, never answering the question that was actually asked. “He said you wanted to see me.”

 “Make them leave,” Yuta whined. “They’re being so—ugh.”

“Golden boy’s being awful?” Hansol asked, smiling faintly.

“The worst,” Yuta said with great conviction, before he turned on his heel to stare the pair on the bed down. “We’ve got a long day tomorrow, so go to your own beds and get some sleep if you want to conquer the hell dance without dying.”

“That doesn’t sound reassuring,” Hansol said.

Taeyong’s eyes flickered to Yuta’s.

“Good night,” he said finally, the Japanese curled perfectly around his tongue, _o-ya-su-mi-na-sai._ He lead Jaehyun out of the room with a hand on his shoulder.

Yuta wondered where Taeyong got off, looking at him like that. All kicked puppy, desperately sad big eyes, yet still _, always_ trying to smile reassuringly. 

The door closed and Hansol murmured, “He’s worried about you.”

Yuta clawed at the air. “He’s _Taeyong,_ he’s worried about _everyone,”_ he said. “Question is, how do I get him to stop.” Hansol opened his mouth and Yuta pressed both his hands on it, and the fleeting warmth of Hansol’s surprised exhale was on his palms. “No, shut up, don’t tell me. I have to figure this out on my own.”

“Just so you know,” Hansol said once his mouth was released, “I think you’re both pretty dumb.”

“If I had any kind of brain to speak of, I’d be the captain of a soccer club by now,” Yuta agreed. “Far, far away from any of you.”

 

 

When Yuta knocked on Taeyong’s room the next morning, someone swore at him, so he kept knocking and twisting the doorknob incessantly over and over till Jaehyun peeked out with puffy red eyes and a swollen face.

“A very good morning to you,” Yuta said, in Japanese. “Taeyong’s making breakfast.”

“Hyung, go die,” Jaehyun said.

Yuta followed him as he shuffled back inside the room, burrowing under the covers. Taeil was sleeping next to him, spilling off the bed like he was made of jelly.

“Guess you were scared off by the hell dance after all,” Yuta mused.

Jaehyun’s eye peeked above the white sheets.

“Didn’t take you for a quitter,” said Yuta.

“Ngh,” Jaehyun groaned.

“So sad,” said Yuta, flicking off imaginary dust from his track pants.

There was silence, before the lump that was Jung Jaehyun twitched, rolling over and knocking his eldest hyung clean off the double they shared. Yuta smirked.

“Fuck you, Yuta-hyung,” said Jaehyun, with feeling.

Cackling like a hyena, Yuta exited the room, and Taeyong’s voice floated out to the hallway wondering if the others were ready for breakfast.

“Give them a minute!” Yuta called. He tiptoed past the rest of the rooms until Taeyong came into view, frowning at the rice cooker as something simmered to a boil on the stove behind him.

“Ten came?”

Taeyong nodded, nudging bowls at Yuta till he got the hint and began rinsing. “He said he wants to try the lyrics out early so he went ahead.”

“I should have forced _him_ to watch anime with me,” Yuta said. “Then all this fuss about accents wouldn’t matter. You don’t even _like_ One Piece.”

“I like watching it with you,” Taeyong said. He hip checked Yuta out of the way to scoop rice into the bowls he’d washed, which could only be a good thing, really, because Yuta was probably making the stupidest face, going by how hot his ears felt, the wild roar in them--

“I like Sicheng’s dramas a lot too,” Taeyong added hurriedly, and of course, of course he meant it _like that,_ Yuta was a fucking idiot. Taeyong’s quick, sure fingers fumbled on wooden handle of the spoon, and his entire face was red.

“Your Mandarin still sucks, though?” Yuta said, and laughed.

Taeyong grumbled, the corners of his lips curling in a tiny little smile. “Shut up, we can’t all pick up languages like you.”

Yuta kept smiling, helpless, until a rumpled Jaehyun shuffled in, followed by Taeil, then Ten, then Hansol looking knowing and warm, and it was time for him to be the leader.

 

 

The seventh practice room was completely empty when Yuta stuck his head in, but Yuta felt a familiar prickle down his spine. Not _completely_ empty, then: there was a bag sagging haphazardly near the mirrors, and the light on the speakers blinked, just like someone had been paused it not too long ago.

He decided to wait whoever it was out by sitting on the abandoned bag. He went through it for good measure and it yielded an unsugared energy drink, some clean clothes, and little else, all terribly unexciting.

 Jaehyun came into the room a few minutes later. Yuta sighed, unsurprised.

“Good evening.”

Taeyong would have screamed. No-jam Jaehyun only started, his eyes skittering across the room before he spotted the huddle that was Yuta and his bag-throne, and once he did Yuta grinned.

“Awful late to be in the haunted practice room by yourself, maknae,” Yuta said conversationally. “Haven’t you heard the rumors?”

Jaehyun’s lips twisted. “Only the ones you and Johnny-hyung made up.”

“No smoke without a fire,” Yuta shot back. This part came easy. They could go on like this for hours, making their managers and hyungs roll their eyes: Jaehyun and Yuta bickering and beaming, happy in each other’s presence as two cats in the sunlight. Then he said, loftily, “If you don’t head back now you won’t have time to shower.”

“Taeyong-hyung won’t mind,” Jaehyun said. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

“… he definitely will,” said Yuta. Dammit, this was difficult. Yuta could only pray in thanks that Mark wasn’t in this merry band of overachievers, because that shit would suck, given how Mark was thousand times the perfectionist Jaehyun was. “And, look, it’s late. If you didn’t get it till now you’re not gonna get it at three in the morning.”

It was, obviously, the wrong thing to say. Before Jaehyun could completely close off, Yuta took his foot out of his mouth and stood up.

“Ignore me, I’m an idiot,” Yuta said. “Look sharp, maknae. Oppa is here, we’re going to nail the hell dance if it’s the last thing we do.”

He took up the starting pose.

Jaehyun shook his head, tired but smiley, the prettiest dongsaeng in the whole world. “Oppa’s really clumsy, isn’t he,” he said. He slotted in next to Yuta and their eyes met in the mirror.

“Bite your tongue,” Yuta said. “Oppa’s got it all figured out.”

 

Yuta fell asleep in the studio the next day, which was only human, he thought. Before his eyes slipped closed—just for a second, he’d thought, just to shake off the worst of it—he remembered scribbling Hangul translations for the individual feedback from the producers and correcting someone’s pronunciation.

“As expected,” the main producer was saying. “One more try and we’re done, Taeyong-kun.”

Taeyong began to sing.

Yuta wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse that Japanese people weren’t into hip hop much, if at all, and that the diligent, diligent business brain of Lee Soomin had decided that that meant no rap parts, at all, not even for Taeyong. The studio’s breath stays caught till Taeyong finishes, and it’s so easy to imagine the same hush falling over stadiums, over arenas, over all the stages all over the world that NCT and Taeyong will stand on one day.

Yuta fell out of his dream when Taeyong stopped. He was holding his headphones with a bashful smile, looking, as usual, outward for approval.

It was this way that Taeyong caught the look on his face before Yuta could wipe it off; he faltered a second, then beamed, sure and unreserved, strikingly beautiful as any sunrise.

 

Taeyong, crazily, was still waiting for Yuta when he finished recording, having gone through his lines enough times for them to lose their meaning, and then going over the recording schedule for the next day. The producers had been lulled into complacence after the relative smoothness of his and Taeyong’s sessions and by Yuta’s suggestions for ad-libs, and agreed to have Ten and Taeil in the morning. As a bribe he’d also slotted in Taeyong in the afternoon to head off any potential irritation of dealing with the other Korean members, with Yuta going last, after Jaehyun.

As Yuta picked his bag up and put it on, he saw Taeyong thumbing through his phone, eyes half-shut. His heart squeezed with fondness.

“Done?” said Taeyong, surprised, catching sight of him. “That was quick. I told Hansol-hyung to go on ahead and sleep.”

 “Was he with Jaehyun?” Yuta asked automatically, but then face-palmed. “What am I talking about, of course Jaehyun’s still practicing.”

“Nuh-uh,” said Taeyong, with the air of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a bag. “He went to bed early.”

“He must be sick, then.”

“I don’t know,” Taeyong hummed. “He said something about the ghost in practice room seven helping him out with the difficult parts last night.”

“At least it’s not Mark,” Yuta said, trying not to notice the way Taeyong was looking at him: warm, proud, a little dazed.

“At least it’s not Mark,” Taeyong agreed, easy. “Plus two hyungs.”

“Plus you,” Yuta said, too exhausted to pretend not to be grateful. “You’re—you’ve been amazing, Taeyongie, watching out for everyone.”

Taeyong frowned at him, catching his lower lip between his teeth. “No, that’s you,” he argued. “I’ve always known you’d be like this, if someone gave you the chance. A great leader.” His eyes softened when Yuta let out a dying groan, curling into two crescent moon smiles. “Hey, hey, Yuta-san.”

Yuta peeked out from between his fingers. He’d die before he said any of the cringey things he was thinking out loud, die die die.

Taeyong was smiling his Taeyong smile, the one that Yuta knew best out of all the things in the world.

“Watch anime with me,” he said.

 

Yuta had a type-- his crushes weren’t all short enough to fit at his side with comfort, and they weren’t always girls, but he was weak for pretty faces, weaker still for the dependable type. Hansol, too tired-eyed to ever be classically handsome and only a little less whimsical than Yuta himself, had been the exception. An exception that lasted for weeks, months, a lifetime.

He and Taeyong used to talk about it, serious and quiet. Most of these talks happened in the 3am dark where you spoke the truth or nothing at all, because when Taeyong was first announced as leader he became a terrible insomniac, and Yuta –still a trainee, his debut a nebulous concept that made him feel lost— stayed up with him, too heartsick to sleep.

He remembered joking that Taeyong was lucky, being too busy to notice any of the other trainees.

“Wow, I was a shithead,” Yuta said, marveling. Taeyong had very quietly brewed them both some kind of healing tea, pushing it into Yuta’s hands so subtly that he hadn’t even noticed he was being pampered, sort of. “I can’t believe I used to think you were too busy to have feelings.”

Taeyong smiled. “But you looked up to me back then. It was cute.”

“I was making it worse,” Yuta said with a snort. “Seriously, if some punk tried to tell me I can’t have a crush because I’m the leader, I’d deck him.”

“But you helped,” Taeyong said. Something in his tone made them both flush, looking down at their cups. Taeyong took a quick gulp of tea. “I liked hearing about your boy problems. You made me feel normal. I don’t think you knew how much that meant to me.”

“I think I can guess,” Yuta said ruefully. “I’m not half the leader you are but I’m already desperate for a break.”

“You didn’t have to say yes,” said Taeyong, quietly.

“I did,” Yuta shot back, and the truth of it sparked like electricity in the room.

Taeyong’s bangs fell into his face, but not before Yuta caught that split second of wonder, the way his lips fell open. Every cell in his body resonated with longing.

“Go to sleep,” Taeyong said gently. “We’ve got a long day ahead.”

He stood up. His hand strayed to Yuta’s cup and his whole body went still when Yuta grabbed him by the wrist. _Oh no,_ Yuta thought when he saw how much Taeyong hated this. _I’m an idiot._

“You heard one half of it,” Yuta said, all in a rush. “Won’t you hear the other half too?”

Taeyong turned half-green. “Yuta,” he said. “You don’t have to—”

“I’m sorry,” Yuta said miserably. “This won’t take a minute. Then you can…we can pretend this never happened, okay? I won’t bother you again,” he gave a shaky smile. “Promise. But Taeyong, you’ve got to know, I did it for you. I hated the idea of being leader, but I did it for you. _There._ ”

Taeyong hunched in on himself. “Because you felt sorry for me,” he mumbled, and the world painfully, amazingly, fell back into place. “Because you’re nice, and I’ve been keeping you to myself all this time. The other members, Jaehyun and them didn’t even know how kind you are. They thought you were irresponsible but they didn’t know how hard you worked. I did, but I didn’t tell anyone. Because I was selfish. Because—”

“No, no,” Yuta chanted. He felt his Hangul slipping away. And wasn’t it Taeyong who normally cried? “I’m not kind and I _am_ irresponsible. I’m working hard for you, see? I want them to lean on me a little so that you wouldn’t have to carry the whole—” he gestured, words gone, raw incoherent feeling scraping up the insides of his mouth. He took in a shuddering breath and rose up to take Taeyong’s pinched unhappy face in his hands. They were the same height; eye contact was immediate, shocking.

“I did it because I love you,” he said, and Taeyong’s face, always breathtaking, was a sight to see: Yuta tried to burn it into his eyes so he could recall it forever. “Head over heels in love. I’m sorry I didn’t make it clear from the beginning. I thought you knew.”

“But you’re with Hansol-hyung,” said Taeyong. His face was bright red now, but he was leaning into Yuta’s touch.

“This is going to sound like a line,” Yuta said, “but I haven’t looked at anyone except you for a long time, Lee Taeyong.”

Taeyong choked out a desperate-sounding laugh. His hands came up to twist in Yuta’s hair, his eyes wide and awed.

“It’s romantic because it’s true,” Yuta said, and Taeyong laughed properly then, his face blooming with color and slow-dawning delight.

“I really thought--” he said, and shook his head. “I’m an idiot.”

“Hey,” Yuta said, because he was weak, because he couldn’t shake off months of insecurity with a graceful shrug. “You too, right?”

Taeyong tightened his hold on his hair and brought his face close, so close their lips rubbed and caught when he spoke. “Me too, Yuta,” and didn’t say anything else before he kissed him.

 

“Congratulations, and stuff,” Hansol beamed at them the next morning, tucking his wallet in his jeans. “Want to go out for breakfast to celebrate? My treat.”

“How much, exactly, did you bet on us,” Yuta said.

Hansol gave the impression of a catlike grin.

“There’s a thought,” Yuta said to Taeyong, later, when they’d gone through their first cycle of practice and everyone felt too sweaty and awful to start going on about them again. “We should go out and have a meal together. There’s this Korean barbecue place I’ve always wanted to show you.”

“You’re asking me out on a _date_ ,” Taeyong said. His eyes were twinkling.

“Why are you being a nerd about this,” Yuta wondered out loud, looking expressively at the ceiling.

Taeyong wriggled closer and linked pinkies. “Maybe we could… _hold hands_.”

“I made a huge mistake, didn’t I,” Yuta realized.

“Hey,” Taeyong said, and _no one_ had warned Yuta about the aegyo. Nobody. Yuta was on uncharted territory. The faces Taeyong made were so adorable Yuta thought he’d have to punch a wall or wrestle a bear or something to start feeling manly again. “No take-backsies.”

Yuta kissed his pout and agreed. “No take backsies.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is a tiny, tiny part of the Tokyo 'verse hijinks. just imagine how hopeless and amazing yuta would be as a leader.
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
